Im new to all this and trying to get my ducks in a row here...

What does it take to break in a motor?

It's gonna be a flat tappet cam and Im guessing using some Shell Rotella for hte breakin period will help with that, but what is the actual procedure?

From wat I've been able to gather while doing searches you basically just run your motor for 30 minutes at 2500 rpms? Is that right?

But that's cam break in... What about seating my rings? Is there any easy way to do that without having to drive the car around? I'm gonna be trying to retune the computer for my new 350 and that's gonna be a crapshoot at best. Im not sure how long it's gonna take for it to be remotely driveable, and from what I understand the best way to seat your rings is to actually drive it, engine braking, etc.

Is there anything else I need to worry about? Maybe I'll get lucky andit will be more driveable than I expect, but I dont want to have to pull the engine a few thousand miles down the road because of a bad tune or not being able to seat the rings or whatever...

Are there any books you guys recommend?

 

im not sure if Rotella would be the best oil for break in, im sure someone else will give you an answer on that.
i prefer a pretty light oil, like straight 20 weight during break in.
do not use anything synthetic for break in.
GM sells a zinc additive to help with cam break in.
cam run in varies, some are 30 minutes at around 1500 RPM, others are higher & longer, your spec sheet should have what the manufacture recommends.
i did have a cam go flat once, i followed the manufacture recommendation to the letter, now i run them in about 10~15 minutes longer than what they call for.

to seat the rings, you will need to drive it.
once the cam is broken in, some say drive it like you stole it, other people say take it easy for the first few hundred miles.
with it still warm from the cam break in, i have always liked starting off with a quarter throttle run up to about 60 with a coast down to around 10 MPH followed by 2 or 3 half ~ 3/4 throttle runs up to around 60 or so with another coast down, lastly 2 or 3 full throttle hard runs to up around 80 or so
with a coast down or 2. then change the oil & filter & drive normally.
remember to keep an eye on temp & oil pressure, listen for strange sounds, if anything abnormal happens, shut it off & find the problem.
after break in, thicker oil is not better, 10w30 is enough.
if it gets really cold where your at, think thinner for the cold part of the year.

 

During cam break in vary the rpms a bit, don't keep it at one set rpm. Have someone else keep an eye on the engine for problems while you keep an eye on the gauges and clock. The way I seated my rings was easy accelerations up to highway speed in 2nd gear and engine braking down to 10 mph. Did that probably 8-10 times, turned around and floored it about 3 times coming back from about 5-10 mph. After that I drove it as normal and changed the oil. Finally got the courage up to spin the engine to 7,000 about 2 weeks later.

The engine has held together and has been punished for 3 years with 210-250 hp shots of nitrous to hitting the limiter at 7500 rpm. The only two breaks I've had have been 2 pushrods about a year apart. The tips broke off so I switched to 1 pc pushrods like I should have got in the first place.

 

about the rings, that's what i was worried about. I'm gonna have to computer tune this 350+change motor basically from scratch to get it driveable, and Im not sure driving it around to seat the rings is gonna be possible right away, which is what i'm worried about. I might give it a shot but I wont know how my VE/SA/PE tables etc are going to play out. It'd suck to grenade the engine right out of the gate because of a rough tune.

But now that I have a better idea of what needs to be done I can get started figuring out what I need to do to get it done.

How important is it to get these ring seating runs in right away?

 

well i guess the whole thing with ring seating is to get them seated as soon as possible to make sure 1 they do seat and 2 you dont destroy them before they do seat if the ever do... but as you can see there are many different ways this can be acomplished I presonaly like the engine brake i like a little more aggresive braking though i find the highest hill and at about 40 shift to 3rd and let the engine slow down till i can hit first and continue til i am idleing
but you should be using a diesel oil like rotella for a flat tappet cam break in that is a must these days... dont want to destroy that cam before you have a chance to blow the tranny...

 

Everyone has their own favourite method but the common thread is to avoid running at constant RPM's for long periods. Running in around town is actually not a bad idea, because you are always on and off the throttle. You need to avoid long periods of idling though. I avoid wide open throttle acceleration for the first 500 miles, prefering to use 3/4 throttle, and have never had anything but good results, but equally, lots of people use WOT without any problems. Whichever method you use, you need to be up and down in the rev range, and you can safely run into the 3500 - 4000 range, but again, I don't do this on full throttle.

Most engine builders have a pretty good idea of what oils work with their camshaft / lifter / ring combination and how they honed the bore and what cross-hatch pattern they used. Ask whoever rebuilt the motor and follow their recommendation.

Change the oil and filter at 500 miles and again at 1500 miles, when you can consider the engine fully run-in.